Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Hacking a car experiment

Nowadays, cyber crimes commonly occur. The magnitude of damage depends on the matter being hacked. If it were a car you are driving, the result would be disastrous.

Recently, an experiment of hacking a car was conducted by a journalist and some hackers. Andy Greenberg, g a senior writer for Wired magazine, asked Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek to hack his car while driving it. They were successful in fulfilling his request. The car made unintentional move several times, and finally stopped.

The hackers utilized an entertainment system to invade the car computer. Once compromised, the car becomes out of control by the driver, meaning that there was a critical vulnerability in the car controlling system.

The hackers took their findings to the company, and Chrysler released a patch to address this issue. Furthermore, it issued a safety recall affecting 1.4 million vehicles in the US.

Actually, Miller and Valasek were so gentle hackers that they let the company know this issue before the media reports are released. Otherwise, it was possible some real incidents would have occurred.

Hacking a car, as well as an airplane, is a nightmare because of its potential danger. Most hackers would not aim a particular car if they had a chance to do. But there are terrorists who are willing to do damage to the society. Some criminals may consider to kidnap a VIP with hacking a private vehicle. In near future, the risk of being hacked would be raised following the spread of auto-driving cars. Proper protection from such malicious acts is essential to be done by the vehicle providers.

Actually, there is substantially no difference between the bank account and the car controlling system in terms of the necessity of protection. The inappropriate procedure can cause fatal damage. Engineers are expected to achieve highly sophisticated works.